


lord have mercy on the frozen man

by mothicalcreatures



Series: to walk the world again [1]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Disconnect from reality, Food Issues, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship, Recovery, Time Travel Fix-It, more detailed warnings in end notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29436372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothicalcreatures/pseuds/mothicalcreatures
Summary: James had fallen, quite literally, into the 21st century, when a patch of rotten ice had given way underneath his feet as they were scouting for leads.--Join James Fitzjames and John Irving as they navigate trauma, recovery and how to find their place in a new century.
Relationships: James Fitzjames/John Irving
Series: to walk the world again [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2162256
Kudos: 21
Collections: John Irving Birthday Week 2021, The Terror Bingo (2020), The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	lord have mercy on the frozen man

**Author's Note:**

> Detailed/clarified warnings are in the end notes. There is a lot of dealing with trauma in this fic, but the emphasis is 100% on recovery not characters getting lost in trauma. 
> 
> A huge enormous thank you to @teapig for letting me yell about this constantly and pick their brain about England and Cambridge and to @annecoulmanross for the incredibly thorough beta (I'm sorry I didn't end up taking your advice about platypodes)
> 
> Also a massive thank you to @breezling for helping me figure out all the medical aspects of John's time in the hospital, I could not have done it without you. 
> 
> The title is from The Frozen Man by James Taylor, which is on the [fic playlist.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7buvavV2ejfjpDLIFBuANB)
> 
> This was written for the Terror Bingo prompt "I'm hungry and I want to live" and also for the John Irving B-day Celebration and Terror Rare Pair Week.

James checked his phone for the tenth time in as many minutes. No new messages or emails, just the last email he’d gotten from his doctor letting him know that _someone else_ had fallen through a temporal shift from coordinates on King William Island and a timestamp less than a full year after James himself. He tried to quell the panic rising in his chest, but it was no use and he staggered into the bathroom to retrieve his anxiety medication. His hands were shaking as he grabbed the bottle; it took him three tries to get the cap off and a few more tries to get a tablet out without dropping it.

Swallowing the medication dry, James slumped down on the floor, leaning against the bathtub while he waited for it to kick in. It was frankly unfathomable how he’d gotten into this situation. No one in their right mind would believe it, save the small handful of scientists and doctors who were involved. If someone had told James a few years ago that he would find himself trying to breath through a panic attack on the floor of his 21st century flat’s bathroom, because of a message he received on his mobile phone, he probably would have thought them insane and mocked them to his friends later.

Friends who were now all long dead, even the ones who hadn’t sailed with him to the Arctic, because it was 2019, and there wasn’t anyone alive from the 19th century anymore, except for James himself and now… he swallowed and shut his eyes. His heart was still pounding and he felt like he might be sick, though he’d never actually thrown up because of a panic attack before.

James had fallen, quite literally, into the 21st century, when a patch of rotten ice had given way underneath his feet as they were scouting for leads. He had felt the shock of the Arctic water and then found himself on the floor of the Temporal Research Institute’s Rift Harnessing Lab in early 2018. The science was beyond him, but his basic understanding was that the lab was where they worked to harness the rifts in order to keep them stable, preventing modern-day people from falling through them (or even knowing about them, as this was a _closely_ guarded secret), and ensuring those people who did fall through from past times received the appropriate care and support.

Following James’ time in quarantine recovering and acclimating to the new environment, he spent months pouring over any information he could find on their expedition, starting as soon as he was physically able. It had been horrible, but James had needed to know what had happened. In hindsight, he could have, and should have, waited until he’d gotten his feet under himself again, but he truly hadn’t known what else to do at the time. Whoever it was that had fallen through this time, he would not allow them to make the same mistake he had. 

His phone buzzed again; a call from a restricted number. James scrambled to answer it.

“Hello?”

“James? Hey, are you okay?”

It was Dr. Rebecca Geist, his therapist. “I am in the middle of a panic attack, thanks for asking.”

“Okay, where are you? Can you get your meds?”

James nodded, before remembering he needed to respond verbally. “Yeah, I just took them. Waiting for them to kick in.”

There was a sigh of relief from Rebecca’s end. “Good, good. I told them not to just email you, that it would be better to break the news over a call.”

“That would have been better, yeah,” James agreed. He was finally beginning to feel less panicked and nauseous, and his heart was no longer beating a mile a minute.

“I don’t have all the details,” Rebecca continued. “But I’ll answer what questions I can.”

“Do they have any idea who it is?” James knew it was unlikely, none of the people working at the Temporal Research Institute were really historians. They had some historical consultants on retainer, but no one on the regular staff, and James knew most of them at this point.

“No, I’m sorry.” Rebecca sighed. “They were actually hoping you might be able to identify him. It’s…” Another sigh. “James, I need you to promise me that you will stay calm before I tell you this.”

James swallowed. That did not bode well. “I’ll do my best.”

“He’s been here for several months already at this point.”

James squeezed his eyes shut and tried to take slow deep breaths. “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”

“Because there was nothing you could have done,” Rebecca said. “He had to be quarantined because of the bacteria carry-over, the same way you were. I know you’re doing a lot better, but we felt that you’d only drive yourself into a horrible place because you’d have felt helpless not being able to do anything for him.”

She was right, but that didn’t mean James had to like it. Then the implications of their earlier conversation sunk in. “Why… why don’t you know his name? Can he not speak?”

“He is in a much worse condition than you were, but it’s less that he can’t speak and more that he won’t speak to any of us about anything of substance. At present, we have him listed as a John Doe.”

“Have you been able get anything out of him?” James asked, feeling desperate hope start to well in his chest. The only people he could rightly rule out were the people who had died before his disappearance (he wasn’t even going to consider the tentatively identified bodies).

“Very religious, Dr. Melrose thinks he might be Scottish, but we can’t be sure… he doesn’t respond much to us.” Rebecca sighed. “Physically, he’s made good improvement over the past months.”

“But…” There was something Rebecca was talking around, and it was tying James’ stomach in knots.

“He still thinks he’s dead and that this is some sort of hell. I’m not sure. He prays a lot.” 

“Christ,” James muttered.

“In his defense, we do appear rather monstrous when we’re dressed up in full PPE,” Rebecca continued. “But things unfortunately haven’t improved much on that front. He’s… calmer now, but he still doesn’t seem to really believe that this is real.”

James was starting to feel ill again, but thankfully Rebecca seemed to pick up that his silence was one of distress, because she rapidly changed the topic.

The sound of papers rustling filtered through from Rebecca’s end. “We’re hoping to have him out of quarantine by the end of the month, but you’ll be able to come see him before that.”

“How soon?”

“I don’t have an exact date unfortunately, but I should think within the next week, if not sooner. They’re waiting for some tests to come back so we can lower the amount of PPE needed for you to be in his room, but they want to get you in to see him as soon as possible.”

James let out a shaky breath. “Do they think I might be able to help him… help him realize that all this is real?”

“That’s part of it, yes,” Rebecca admitted.

He felt utterly choked. “I’ll do whatever I can.”

“I know you will,” Rebecca assured him. “For now, I’ll start with sending you his picture once we get off the phone.” 

James wiped at his eyes, which had started to water, and levered himself to his feet using the sink. “Could you send it now?”

“Of course, give me just a second.”

There was some shuffling on the other end of the phone as Rebecca presumably had to get to her computer. It was a Saturday, so she wouldn’t be in her office, and James made his way out of the bathroom to find his own computer, so he didn’t have to multitask on his phone while on a call.

“Alright, sent.”

James nodded. “Okay, my computer’s in my bedroom, I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Take your time,” Rebecca assured him.

James honestly wasn’t sure what he’d do without Rebecca. She hadbeen there from the very start, helping him through the culture shock, the trauma and all of his subsequent bad decisions. He dropped heavily onto his bed, and pulled his laptop out from under his pillow and flipped it open.

Anxiety was bubbling in his stomach as he navigated to his email, and if he hadn’t just taken anti-anxiety meds, he was certain he’d be nauseous again. He clicked on the email from Rebecca. It took him several moments to recognize the man in the picture, as he was incredibly gaunt and also clean shaven.

“John Irving,” he croaked after another moment. “His name is John Irving.”

* * *

John didn’t know how much time had passed since he’d woken in what he had been told was a hospital. It didn’t look like any hospital he’d known, and the people didn’t look like any people he’d ever seen before either, but he’d had no choice in the matter. In truth, it had been days before he’d realized the… things… he was seeing were people. They were covered head to toe in bulky blue suits and their faces obscured by masks like some horrific parody of a plague doctor. He’d thought they were demons at first, and he still wasn’t entirely sure they weren’t.

It didn’t help that he’d been kept drugged, stuck full of needles and tubes and mostly confined to a bed. He’d been restrained for a time when he’d tried to get up and leave and then fought being returned to the bed. He’d always thought Hell would be fire and burning; if this was Hell, well, he didn’t know what to make of it.

After a time he’d stopped fighting it when the people would come in to give him ‘treatments’ or medication—or food once they removed the tube from his throat—and he found that not fighting made things hurt less. The fog in his head eventually began to clear somewhat, and slowly but surely his body’s aches lessened. It made no sense, but then why should this make sense? These… _people_ … told him the most impossible things. They insisted he wasn’t dead and that he had fallen through time over a century into the future. Lies surely, they couldn’t be anything else. God had not saved them in the Arctic and John simply could not fathom that divine intervention would look like _this._

Still, while John was still hesitant to give them any information that might be used against him, he now relented to accepting their care, being relatively cooperative when it came to various requests and requirements—like when they gave him a series of exercises he could do in bed. They’d said the exercises were to help him regain strength, and they had recently begun encouraging him to try walking around his room, but John saw very little point in that. It didn’t seem like they’d ever let him leave for one, and his legs hurt far more than his arms did.

He heard the door to the room where he was confined open, and panic spiked in his chest as it always did, sure that this time would be when everything was revealed as the foreshadowing to a bigger nightmare. He tried to calm his breathing to keep feigning sleep, though that rarely stopped them from bothering him if they needed something.

“He’s just sleeping.” That sounded like the nurse. “Thankfully we don’t have to sedate him anymore.”

“Sedate him?” A new voice, male, and oddly familiar though he couldn’t place it.

“Yes, he was very panicked early on, it was to keep him from hurting himself. You mentioned that Dr. Geist told you about what we were able to get out of him?”

A beat. “Yes.”

“He still doesn’t respond to us much.”

This was followed by a sigh from the man. “Hopefully he’ll respond to me.”

John had no idea what to make of that.

“Well, I’ll give you two some space, I’ll be out here if you need me.”

Footsteps and then the door opened and closed again.

The man gave another long extended sigh and then his footsteps came toward John’s bed and there was the scrape of a chair being pulled over.

“Christ, John, look at you.”

And of course this new man would know his name, everyone else did. They’d called him John from the start. Hadn’t even asked his name until later, but he had never answered; it had felt too much like a trap.

Suddenly he felt a hand at his forehead—gloved as ever, brushing his hair aside, and he flinched. The touch was gone in an instant.

“John?”

John whimpered and clenched his eyes shut.

There was a moment of silence, then the man cleared his throat. “Lieutenant Irving.”

John’s eyes shot open and he choked on a near hysterical sob. “Captain Fitzjames?”

It came out as more of a croak than anything else and John could feel his chest tighten as panic seized him. If Captain Fitzjames was here then… what hope did he have?

Fitzjames took his hand. “I’m here, Irving. Just breathe, in and out, focus on me. In, out, that’s it.”

Slowly, John managed to latch onto what Fitzjames was saying and slowly, his choked breaths evened out and his heart stopped pounding quite so loudly. When he took a moment to really look at Fitzjames, he wasn’t as he remembered him. No, he was a far cry from it. He looked healthy in a way that none of them had been toward the end, but he also didn’t look like he had early on, even if John’s memories were blurred. He wasn’t dressed like John remembered… he wore the same blue robes that everyone who came in to see John did.

John squeezed his eyes shut and a tear slipped down his cheek. “You’re not real.”

Fitzjames’ breath hitched and he squeezed John’s hand. “I assure you I am. I know how frightening this seems, but I am real and alive and so are you.”

John opened his eyes again. “How can this possibly be living? How can this not be Hell?”

“I… I’m afraid I don’t have good answers to those questions. This world… certainly seems hellish at times, but it’s been the fault of people mostly, not any devil. And this…” Fitzjames wiped as his eyes with his sleeve, before gesturing around the room. “This is a hospital in Cambridge. I don’t know what all you’ve been told. They said you wouldn’t respond to them most of the time.”

“They said a century had passed,” John said softly and felt rather nauseous when Fitzjames nodded.

“More than. We missed all of the 1900s. It’s just turned 2019.”

It was more than John could wrap his mind around. “How is it possible? You died. You fell through the ice… How is this not death?”

“I don’t know, there’s… science to it…” Fitzjames huffed. “Something to do with time not being linear and… and _thin_ in places. We aren’t the first to fall out of time. There are others and there is a correlation to near-death experiences, or so I’ve been told.”

John was quiet. If that was true, why him? Why not any of the better men on their expedition? Why not Captain Crozier? Lieutenant Little?

“Do you think it has anything to do with that creature?”

“Ah… that I, I have even less of an answer for that. I don’t know, maybe… there’s no modern science to explain that. I can’t even find much on it when I look for Inuit mythology. Could be I’m looking in the wrong places, but…” Fitzjames trailed off. “I wish I had better answers for you, beyond asking you to trust me.” Another beat of silence. “Has anything I’ve said helped? At all?”

“I don’t know,” John murmured and Fitzjames face fell. “I mean I… how do I even know you’re real and not some hallucination?”

Fitzjames was quiet for a moment. “I suppose telling you that the nurses and doctors know I’m real won’t help much.”

Did it help? At the very least John knew that Fitzjames wasn’t simply a figment of his imagination, even if he still wasn’t sure he was in the living world or some dead one.

“It helps some,” John said, his voice cracking. His throat was starting to get sore—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken this much—and he was overcome by a wave of exhaustion despite the fact that he’d already spent most of the day sleeping.

Fitzjames nodded slightly. “Good, good…”

Silence stretched between them and John felt his eyes beginning to drift shut, but he forced them open again.

“I can leave you to rest if you’d like,” Fitzjames said. “God knows you need it.”

Panic lurched in John’s stomach. “No. No, stay… please.” He swallowed heavily, realizing immediately after that that was perhaps too forward a request to make of the captain.

Fitzjames didn’t seem bothered by it, however, for which John was very glad. He also hadn’t let go of his hand, John realized. “I’ll stay as long as they’ll let me.”

John nodded slowly, relaxing into the bed—he hadn’t even realized he’d been so tense. “What happens now?”

“Now… now you rest and focus on getting well,” Fitzjames said. “You won’t be kept isolated much longer and then we can get you out of here.”

The thought of leaving hadn’t really occurred to John in any meaningful way in some time. There had been times that he’d _wanted_ to leave early on, frightened and just wanting to get away from this. Where would he go? Where _could_ he go? He had no family to return to, no friends who would take him in. Everyone he knew, save Captain Fitzjames, would be dead and gone. He still would have relatives, certainly, but none he knew or would dare to impose upon.

“Irving?” Fitzjames was frowning. “Are you all right?”

He was and he wasn’t, but he didn’t quite know how to say that. “Where will I go?”

Fitzjames let out what John could only describe as a sigh of relief. “With me, if you’d be amenable. I’ve got a flat not terribly far from here and there’s a spare bedroom. If you’d rather not, the people here can help you get your own housing.”

“I think I’d rather stay with you, if that’s all right, sir,” John said. It was grounding to have Fitzjames here. If he really wasn’t a hallucination, then… then they were the only two survivors, and John desperately didn’t want to be alone.

“Good.” Fitzjames cleared his throat. “I’d been hoping you’d say that.” He was quiet a moment before he spoke again. “I went through this too, you know, so I- I know how disorienting it is.”

Oh. “Is this… is this normal then? For… for situations like ours?” Fitzjames had said they were not the only people who had fallen out of time.

Fitzjames nodded and the knot in John’s chest loosened further. “It’s a… decontamination process to ensure we aren’t bringing over diseases that have been eradicated and such. The anamacules that cause disease can evolve and change. You’ve likely already been given the appropriate modern vaccines.”

“They’ve given me lots of injections,” John said. “I… I’m imagining they’ve figured out a few more things about medicine in the time we missed.”

Fitzjames grinned. He looked just about as relieved as John felt. “They have yes, quite a bit. I still make a fool of myself sometimes for what I don’t know. I do have a book or two that might be helpful. I can bring them tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. John felt his eyes well up simply at the thought, at the _promise_ of seeing Fitzjames again, even though the man hadn’t even left yet. His breath hitched in his through as he tried to speak, sounding rather like a sob.

“Everything all right?” Fitzjames asked, his face resuming it’s previous worried expression.

“Yes.” John nodded quickly, though he didn’t quite know how to express the overwhelming wave of emotions he was feeling.

“Overwhelmed?” Fitzjames guessed, and John nodded again.

Fitzjames squeezed John’s hand once more. “Perfectly understandable. I’ve spent the better part of a year overwhelmed. Maybe it’ll be easier with two of us.” He paused a moment, shaking his head. “When I was told that someone else had fallen through… I came to see you as soon as I could. I only wish I could have come sooner.”

John felt choked and tears started to blur his vision. He reached up to roughly wipe them away, wincing as the needle shoved in the crook of his elbow pinched. “Thank you.” He didn’t know quite what he was thanking Fitzjames for, but it felt the only appropriate thing to say.

Fitzjames stayed a while longer, telling John bits and pieces about contemporary life while John mostly just listened. When John eventually became too tired to keep his eyes open any longer, it didn’t feel so terrible that Fitzjames encouraged him to sleep, because that came with a promise that he would be back, and for the first time in a long while John believed it.

* * *

James took his first week of classes off—a family emergency he’d told his professors—to spend as much time as possible with Irving and help him acclimate. He brought books as he’d promised, and explained, as much as he was able, the sort of technology that Irving would have to deal with.

“You obviously don’t have to figure everything out at once,” James assured Irving, when he noticed him getting the particular sort of anxious James himself got when he was overwhelmed by something. “Once you’ve moved in with me, you can get used to using my stuff before you have to worry about getting your own things, but ah, certain things are a rather unfortunate necessity these days.”

John nodded, worrying his lip. “Right.”

“There’s also a good deal that’s just common sense,” James added. “Once you get past the strangeness, there’s a lot you can figure out just by poking around, and if that doesn’t work, then someone has almost certainly made instructions for it.”

This sort of pattern continued after James returned to his classes, and though his visits were shorter, it was heartening to watch Irving improve slowly but steadily with James’ visits.

By the time Irving was finally moved out of quarantine at the beginning of February he was able to walk around his room mostly unaided. The move also meant that James could stay longer and took to bringing his class work with him and spreading out at the small table.

“What is this?” Irving asked, pointing to a picture in James’ biology textbook. He’d been hobbling about the room with his IV drip for a while earlier and had joined James on the small couch afterwards, instead of returning to the bed.

James leaned over to get a better look. “Oh, that’s a nudibranch, a sea slug. That one in particular is a…” His eyes flicked over the text of the page. “ _Doris odhneri_ , the giant white nudibranch.”

“Giant? How big do they get?” Irving tugged the textbook toward him to read over what was on the page.

“I don’t know about this one in particular, but sea slugs can be anywhere from less than an inch to two feet.” James turned to his laptop to find out what specifically the size _Doris odhneri_ got.

“That can’t possibly be two feet,” Irving muttered and James laughed.

“It probably isn’t, let me…” He paused to scan the Wikipedia entry. “Those only get a bit over half a foot.”

Irving hummed and turned the page. “Can I ask what made you want to study this, sir?”

“I’ve told you there’s no need for such formalities,” James said gently. “I’m not your superior any more.” He snorted. “I’m hardly a captain anymore.”

Irving nodded slowly. “Is the Navy very changed then?”

“Very,” James said. “Everything’s electronic these days. I’m not sure I’d know what to do with myself on a modern ship. I’d have to more or less start my career over, even if I could count my previous service.” Given everything, it had been a rather easy decision to try to find something else to do with his life.

“Is that something you think you might try to return to?” James asked.

Irving shook his head, face falling rather dramatically. “I…” He gave a bitter laugh. “I wasn’t particularly happy in the Navy before, but it was the least miserable of my options at the time.”

And if that wasn’t the worst of ironies, James thought. “Well, you’ve got plenty of options now and people to help you get back on your feet.”

Irving was quiet for several moments. “You mentioned previously that you were able to attend Cambridge through the… the institute here… Could I do the same?”

“Yes, of course,” James said, caught a bit off guard by the flush of relief that ran through him. “It’s… well, I might not recommend making a go of it right away, but once you’ve gotten your health back… Part of the acclimation process is some sort of schooling, be it attending university or a trade school or something else. Having a proper degree is required for most jobs these days.”

Irving nodded slowly. “And you chose Cambridge for that?”

“Yes, I…” James paused a moment, having to collect himself as he always did before bringing up his past. “My brother, Will, attended Cambridge, and well… it was the best suited to what I wanted to study.There wasn’t really much choice of university; the institute sponsors me to attend Cambridge and it’s the only such affiliated university in England.”

There were various universities affiliated with other time travel institutes that James could have theoretically attended that also would have provided the same or similar network of support, but James hadn’t felt ready at the time to try his luck in a foreign country, even one he’d been to before.

“There’s also the matter of finances,” James continued. “Attending an unaffiliated university would have cost me money that I do not have, as I have no access to any of the money I had previously.” Which was extremely irritating as he could have set himself up quite comfortably using the money Will had given him just prior to their sailing for the Arctic.

Irving blanched. “I hadn’t even considered…”

He sounded on the verge of panic, and James reached out to give Irving’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “It’s all right. Don’t worry about that right now. I can take care of things for the both of us for the time being.”

Irving nodded, but he still looked more than a little distraught.

“I think I need to lie down,” he murmured quietly.

“Do you need help getting back to bed?” James asked. He didn’t want to presume, but he was worried.

“Please…” John murmured. “At- at least to stand.”

James gave a small nod, pushing the small table back so he could position himself in front of Irving to help him up.

As Irving got to his feet his face became pained almost immediately, and James braced himself as Irving staggered and slumped against him with a whimper. “Oh, God.”

“You’re all right. I’ve got you, just lean on me.” James shifted his hold on Irving slightly to avoid getting tangled in his IV. “I’m going to lift you and carry you over the bed, all right?”

Irving let out a shuddering breath and nodded his assent against James’ chest.

Doing his best not to jostle Irving over much, James carefully lifted him and carried him the few feet to the hospital bed. While James’ strength was not what it once was, Irving was unfortunately still frail enough that carrying him posed little trouble.

“Thank you,” Irving breathed, once James had helped him get settled. “I hadn’t realized how much standing would hurt.”

“It’s shocking how little exercise it takes to overexert yourself when you’re so worn down,” James said. He’d experienced it himself, though the consequences hadn’t exactly ever deterred him from doing the exact same thing again and again.

Irving let out a long sigh, shutting his eyes as he eased back against his pillows. There were several beats of silence between them before he spoke again. “A good friend of mine attended Cambridge. I’d been rather jealous of his freedom to do so, given how unhappy I’d found myself in my own pursuits.”

“How did you meet?” James asked, hoping to steer the conversation to happier reminiscences.

It did not have the intended effect, as Irving just squeezed his eyes shut tighter as a tear streaked down his check and he took a shaky breath before speaking. “We’d been in the Navy together until he’d had to leave for his health… he’s… he _was_ the dearest friend I ever had.”

Irving wiped at his eyes and turned his head to face James. “How do you bear it? Knowing that everyone you ever knew and loved is gone, that they’ll never know…” He trailed off with a small hiccup of a sob. 

“Not well,” James admitted. “I, uh, I spent a rather long time trying to learn everything I could about the lives of the people I left behind it… wasn’t the happiest pursuit.” He thought it best not to mention the entire field of study that had emerged surrounding their expedition just yet.

“It’s been hard, lonely…” he continued. “I’ve made a few new friends, but with all the secrecy protocols I can’t exactly tell them much about my life and while I don’t mind simply… omitting things or letting them draw their own conclusions, I don’t want to lie outright. It might be terribly selfish of me to say, but I’m glad that you’re here.”

Irving’s breath hitched. “I… I don’t know if I’m ready to say I’m glad to be alive, but it doesn’t feel so frightening anymore.”

“It does get easier, even though it might not feel like it now,” James said, fidgeting his hands to tamp down the urge to reach for Irving.

“Dr. Geist said more or less the same thing,” Irving replied with a sigh and James perked up at that immediately.

“You’ve been talking to Dr. Geist?”

Irving nodded. “Just a little. She made it clear that she knew most of what happened from you, so I didn’t… I didn’t have to go into any more detail than I felt comfortable.”

“Talking helps more than you might think,” James said. “But to everything its own time,” he added, as worry flickered across Irving’s face. “Dr. Geist has helped me through a great deal and she won’t think less of you for anything you tell her.”

Irving turned away from James, his gaze flicking up to the ceiling. “You don’t know that for certain.”

That was technically true, James supposed, though he found it hard imagining Irving having the sort of secret that would cause that. “No, I suppose I don’t,” he said at length. “However, I do know that society’s perception of many things are quite changed, as are the notions of how surviving horrific events leaves scars, both mental and physical.”

Irving sighed. He looked conflicted, as though he wanted to say something, but anything he might have said was lost when the door to the room opened and the nurse arrived with a tray of food, effectively ending the conversation.

As the nurse set about checking up on Irving, James retreated to his homework, though he spent more time watching Irving than getting any real work done. Irving seemed much more strained than he had been mere moments before, and it didn’t abate even once the nurse had left.

James watched Irving prod at his food a while longer—some sort of soup from the look of it—before speaking. “Is everything all right?”

“No…” Irving admitted softly, then he sighed. “I don’t know. Was eating difficult for you too?”

“Somewhat,” James said slowly. There was a sinking feeling in his gut that he knew where this was going. “I couldn’t eat very much at first because of how starved we’d been, even early on in the walk. Rich foods still make me a bit queasy sometimes.” He didn’t think that was at all the answer Irving was looking

Irving didn’t look up from the bowl, simply nodding. “I had a tube in my throat for a while; first because I was too weak to eat on my own and then because I refused to. I’m doing better now, but…”

“It’s still not easy,” James finished after Irving trailed off.

Irving shook his head.

“Eat what you can,” James said. “If you can’t finish it, you can’t finish it, but you should try to eat at least a little.”

“Right,” Irving muttered. He took a deep breath, as if to steel himself, and, slowly, began eating.

Irving really did seem as though he was forcing himself through something horribly uncomfortable, James thought before turning his attention back to his laptop. He knew he wouldn’t have wanted to be watched while struggling to eat.

James had barely begun reading again, when he heard Irving retch and he looked up just in time to see Irving vomit over the side of the hospital bed. He was on his feet and at Irving’s side in an instant, pressing the call button for the nurse.

Irving was shaking as James helped him sit back and he could barely hold the cup of water James got for him.

“I’m sorry,” Irving choked out. “I can’t…” He gave a strained sob. “I can’t…”

James glanced over at the food (which was now one small nudgefrom being knocked off the tray from Irving’s sudden movement). Chicken soup. He sighed and rubbed Irving’s arm comfortingly. “It’s all right, like I said before, you don’t have to finish it if you can’t.”

Irving sobbed, tears spilling over. “But I _want_ to eat. I’m hungry… I’m…” He cut himself off with another sob.

“It’s the meat isn’t it,” James said softly. “That you have trouble eating.”

Irving squeezed his eyes shut, his breaths beginning to come in sharp gasps.

James swore under his breath. “Irving? John? I need you to breathe for me, all right? Slow, deep breaths, in and out, can you do that?”

Irving tried to take a deeper breath, and James kept talking him through breathing even as the nurse finally arrived. Thankfully she didn’t need any direction to figure out what had happened. She only interrupted briefly to let James know she would be back shortly after she’d gotten things somewhat cleaned up.

It was several long minutes after that that Irving finally stopped shaking and his breathing returned to normal.

“How are you feeling?” James asked, rubbing Irving’s back gently.

Irving sniffed. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“I shouldn’t… I should be grateful for the food I’m given, but I’m…”He turned to look at James. “I can’t eat it… I can’t…”

“You don’t have to,” James said. “We’ll find food you can eat. It’s easy enough these days to make a good meal using no meat.”

Irving stared at James for a long moment looking rather like a spooked animal. He opened his mouth to speak several times, before giving up.

There was, really, no delicate way to broach the subject, but they were all but talking around it now, so James pressed forward. “I know what happened, toward the end. It’s no fault of yours, John, it was an impossible choice. You did what you had to in order to survive. ”

Tears started welling in Irving’s eyes once more, and for a moment James was afraid his words would send Irving spiraling into a panic again, but he managed to remain relatively calm, though his voice shook when he spoke.

“How… how would you know that? I’ve never… I never told anyone about that.”

James sighed. “You didn’t have to. People have spent the past century and a half trying to figure out what happened to us, scoured just about every inch of King William Land. They were able to… infer what had happened from some of the bones they found.”

“What else… what else did they…” Irving trailed off with a hitched breath and squeezed his eyes tight for a moment to push back tears.

“Another time,” James said, with a shake of his head. “There are… countless books that have been written, and there will be time enough for reading them, should you choose, but not now. Spare yourself the grief and focus on getting well.”

Irving clenched his jaw, and James thought Irving might be preparing to argue, but then his breath caught again and he crumbled into ugly, heart-wrenching tears.

James reached out, pulling Irving up and into an embrace, and he only tensed for an instant before allowing himself to be held as he sobbed into James’ chest.

* * *

Things changed rather dramatically after that. Fitzjames spoke to John’s doctor and suddenly, he was no longer being given anything with meat and they didn’t even ask why. They just explained that he would need to take some additional supplements in order to ensure that he was getting all the proper nutrients—and then provided another explanation about what _that_ meant, when John was confused by the first explanation.

Then, barely a week later—a week where John managed not to be sick after eating at all—his doctor came to discuss his being discharged. It had come up before in conversation with Fitzjames, but it had always seemed so vague and distant, a thought for a future that never quite felt like it would actually arrive. However, apparently John’s struggles with food had been one of the last things preventing his discharge, and now that they had resolved the biggest of those issues, they felt he could be allowed to recover outside of the hospital.

There were other things to work out, of course: ensuring that he kept to a good steady diet, continuing with his physical therapy, beginning the task of all the necessary paperwork to prove he existed—an ordeal Fitzjames assured him would mostly be taken care of on his behalf, as it was terribly complicated. However, all these things could be done with John living elsewhere, he was told, and apparently Fitzjames lived close enough to walk to the Temporal Research Institute in a matter of minutes. John was still hesitant, if only because he and Fitzjames had only discussed it the once, on the very first day the captain had come to see him. He didn’t want to presume until they’d spoken about it in more detail. The doctor, thankfully, was more than understanding about this, and left John to himself after a quick vitals check.

John sighed and tried to return to the book Fitzjames had left him: _Good Omens_ , a terribly odd, and rather blasphemous, novel about an angel and a demon and the _antichrist_. Fitzjames had assured him that it likely wasn’t the horrible thing John was thinking and so he’d relented to try it and, to his surprise, found he enjoyed it. It was terribly irreverent, but it made a quite compelling argument about free will versus predetermination, which he hadn’t expected, and it was entertaining in the ridiculousness of its irreverence.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep his mind from worrying ceaselessly about what Fitzjames might say when he brought up the prospect of living with him again. Things had changed considerably since that first day—John had a much better grip on himself, for one—maybe Fitzjames would encourage John to seek out his own accommodations. He shook his head and tried to return to reading about the antichrist Adam, the witch Anathema, and Dog, the hell-hound, who Irving found himself imagining as a fox terrier.

John had _just_ managed to finish the “Thursday” chapter, when Fitzjames arrived, wind flushed and with snow melting on his wool cap and coat. John tensed immediately and turned to glance out the window. At some point in the afternoon it had begun to snow quite heavily and it had already piled up considerably in the courtyard that his room overlooked.

His attention was pulled back to Fitzjames when there was a loud thunk and he turned to see that Fitzjames had deposited a large pack onto one of the chairs.

“How are you feeling?” Fitzjames asked, as he shucked off his coat and draped it over the end of John’s bed.

John nodded wordlessly, before finding his voice. “I hadn’t realized it had started snowing.”

Fitzjames hummed quietly. “They canceled classes after my first class this morning.” He snorted. “Apparently people have forgotten how to deal with snow in the years we missed, but it gave me more time to get the house ready.”

“Ready?” John’s voice cracked and he swallowed to try and clear his throat.

“Yes…” Fitzjames gave John a curious look. “I was told you were ready to be discharged.”

 _Oh._ “I… I told them I wanted to talk to you first, before I made up my mind,” John said.

Fitzjames’ brow furrowed. “Hmmm… they made it sound like a much more certain thing.” He shook his head. “No matter, there’s a place for you with me if you want it.”

John must still have looked uncertain, because after a moment’s hesitation Fitzjames continued. “There are other accommodations available. The building I live in belongs to the institute so all the flats in it are reserved for people like us, though I’m the only person living there at present.”

The moment the suggestion took hold, John felt panic rising in his chest and the realization that he desperately did not want to have to try to survive on his own right now in this overwhelming and terribly unfamiliar world. He didn’t think he could bear having to be so alone, even if Fitzjames was nearby. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves before he spoke, “I think I’d rather stay with you.”

Something eased in Fitzjames at that, and he nodded. “I’ve set you up in the study. It’ll take a bit more rearranging to turn it into a bedroom proper, but it’s got a sofa that pulls out into a bed for now.”

“A sofa that…” John tried to visualize it in his head, but found himself utterly unable to.

“There’s a metal bed frame that collapses into the base of the sofa, and there are removable cushions that go on top of that,” Fitzjames explained. “It’s exceedingly clever.”

He then changed direction to the pack he’d brought, pulling it open.

“I have some clothes for you. They’ll feel strange, fabric simply isn’t made like it used to be and the fashions have changed wildly, but they’re some of the more comfortable things I’ve found. They are mine, so they might not fit you well, but I thought you’d prefer to figure out what sort of modern clothes you liked before I went and bought you anything. I did, however, take the liberty of getting you a winter coat, since I didn’t have a spare.”

John shuffled forward on the bed to take the garments from Fitzjames. He was right, they _did_ feel strange, and they looked strange too—the trousers, the shirt, and the undergarments particularly, all looked strange—but they were soft and warm and John felt they’d be a vast improvement over the garments that the hospital had given him. “Should I change now?” he asked.

“It would likely be best to wait until you’ve got your IV removed,” Fitzjames pointed out, and John glanced down to the tube coming out of his arm.

Right. That would have to come out. As uncomfortable as it was, John had more or less gotten used to it as something he simply had to put up with. “I’d honestly forgotten it was there,” John mumbled.

Fitzjames laughed. “I can’t say I was ever the same, it bothered me terribly. I could never get past the thought that I had a rubber tube stuck in my arm, so I was always picking at it or playing with it.”

“I tried to pull it out, early on, before I really knew what was happening,” John said, shifting uncomfortably. “I… That was the first time they had to tie me down.” He swallowed and glanced up at Fitzjames. “Did you ever…?”

Fitzjames shook his head and moved over to sit on the end of the bed. “I was threatened with it, since, as I mentioned, I was a terrible patient and did try to get out of bed before they wanted, but they never had to restrain me, no.”

John’s eyes flicked back down and he worried at the bedsheets. “I feel foolish now, for spending so long thinking that this was Hell. I could have… I don’t know… I could have done _something._ ”

“John, what happened to us…” Fitzjames sighed. “It’s _unfathomable_. Most people today wouldn’t believe it, even with the leaps and bounds of science.”

He reached forward to take John’s hand, squeezing it lightly. “You can’t be blamed for your mind reaching for what it thought was the most reasonable conclusion, and you also shouldn’t discount how ill you were. I can’t imagine you were thinking clearly; I certainly wasn’t, and you were in much worse condition than I was.”

John nodded slowly, tears pricking at his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Of course, John,” Fitzjames said gently, squeezing John’s hand again. “You don’t have to deal with any of this alone.”

The nurse chose that moment to arrive so John didn’t have a chance to respond, but he was so overwhelmingly grateful that he felt he might cry. He tried to hold it in for now, however, and he wiped at his eyes.

The nurse had John lie back as she slowly removed the IV catheter from his arm, walking John through what the process of his discharge would be like as she did so. It was fairly straightforward; there would be a lot of ensuring that John knew how to care for his remaining ailments and that Fitzjames knew how to help with what John couldn’t do on his own, and reminders of where to go to pick up John’s medication and a knee brace. (His left knee seemed determined not to heal well, and his physical therapist had instructed him to get a brace before he left the hospital.)

They also learned why the minor miscommunication about John’s discharge had occurred.

“There’s a government inspection happening tomorrow,” the nurse—an older woman named Suzanne who John quite liked—explained. “Sprung on us, at the last minute, as usual. However, if John is here, they _will_ want to talk to him, and they will likely want to witness a whole barrage of tests as well.”

John winced. She sounded like she was talking from experience, and John felt for the poor soul who had been put through that.

Suzanne patted John on the shoulder sympathetically. “Everyone’s been running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get everything in order, likely your doctor and whoever called James hadn’t even had a chance to talk to each other.”

“Well, no harm done,” James said. “Probably for the best, actually, given the weather. Gave me a chance to get proper clothes for John.”

“I’ll let you get changed then,” Suzanne said. “The doctor will follow me shortly.” She gave John’s shoulder a final squeeze before turning and leaving the room.

John sighed and rubbed his arm where the IV had been.

“Do you need any help?” Fitzjames asked, gesturing at the pile of clothes.

“I don’t think so,” John began, then he frowned. “Well… I’d like a bath but…” He hated trying to work the shower in the small bathroom attached to his room.

“I’ve got a bath at my flat,” Fitzjames said. “Better soaps too. I’ll get you a bath drawn as soon as we get in.”

John let out a long breath of relief at the mere thought of getting to sink into a warm bath, and he gathered himself to get out of bed. He was no longer as shaky on his feet as he had been, but it was still strenuous. Once he felt sufficiently stable, he gathered the clothes Fitzjames had brought for him and slipped into the bathroom to change.

The one thing Irving could say for the clothes was that they were easy to put on unaided. Simple flannel trousers held up with an elastic waistband, a soft cotton shirt that slipped on over his head, and warm woolen socks that were by far the most familiar feeling of the clothes. The underthings were not a fabric he could name, but they were fairly comfortable as well, more so than he’d imagined when he’d seen them (they were a shocking blue with little platypus caricatures all over them).

The doctor was waiting with Fitzjames when John finally emerged, but he only stayed long enough to give John a brief rundown of his medications and supplements and show him how to put on and adjust his knee brace.

“I thought there would be more to it,” John admitted, as he shrugged into his coat. “It feels… almost unreal that I can just… walk out of here.”

His nerves were starting to get the better of him, particularly as he stared out at the white-coated world outside. It was only England, but that white would haunt him to the end of his days. He hadn’t even realized his hands were shaking until Fitzjames stepped forward to pull his hands away from the buttons of his overcoat and finished buttoning it up for him.

“You’ll be all right,” Fitzjames said softly. “It’s a short walk. You’ll be inside and warm again before you know it. And, well, it’s only just at freezing.”

“Only freezing,” John repeated, shaking his head with a bitter smile. “Just like summer in the Arctic.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and took a deep breath.

“Ready?” Fitzjames asked.

John nodded and Fitzjames turned to push open the door.

* * *

James kept a closer eye on Irving as they made the short trek from the Temporal Research Institute to his flat than he strictly needed to. Irving was doing incredibly well, all things considered, but James still worried. He knew what he’d been like this early on, and while that hadn’t been terribly long ago, in the grand scheme of things, it felt like ages.

They were nearly there when Irving began to flag, and James stepped over to take his arm.

Irving started at the touch, stopping in his tracks, before he eased and allowed James to take some of his weight. If the pallor of his face was anything to go by, his mind had been very much elsewhere. 

“We’re almost there,” James said. He gestured to a house down the road. “That’s the building I live in.”

Irving sighed. “It really is close. I’m sorry… I…”

“Do you need to rest a moment?” James asked. He really couldn’t think of anything else that Irving might be apologizing for.

“No, no, I’d… I’d rather get inside.”

He was shaking rather fiercely, James realized, though it was hard to tell if it was from the cold, nerves or something else.

James ushered them forward again, trying to hurry their pace without overexerting Irving.

As soon as they were safely inside James’ flat, he helped Irving strip out of his coat and boots and steered him toward the bathroom.

Irving was shaken out of whatever thoughts had overtaken him outside by the sight of the very modern bathroom. “Oh. I was… that was not the sort of bath I was imagining.”

James chuckled. “It’s a good deal nicer than the ones we had, that’s for sure. Will you be all right on your own if I show you how to work the tap?”

“Yes,” Irving said, with a slight nod. “I’ll… where will you be?”

“The kitchen, it’s right next door.” James tapped on the wall. “If you need anything, just holler, I’ll hear it. But I thought I might make us something to eat, get something better in you than all that hospital food.” 

Irving nodded. “Yes, yes, that would be nice.”

“I’ll bring you some fresh clothes too,” James said. Irving’s pants were snow-damp and would certainly not be dried in time.

“Thank you,” Irving murmured.

James got the tap started, pointing out which knob was hot and cold and showing Irving how to plug and unplug the tub, as well as which soaps were meant for hair and which ones were body soaps. After that he excused himself to give Irving his privacy.

In the hallway outside of the bathroom, James slumped against the wall, letting out a long shaky breath all the tension that he’d been holding for the past weeks rush out of him in a flood. It wasn’t quite the relief he’d expected, but in James’ experience it so rarely was. Dr. Geist had warned him, repeatedly, not to neglect himself as he cared for Irving, but it was so easy to simply shove everything down when one had other things to do.

He took a moment to collect himself, breathing slow and deep to calm his racing heart, before he slipped into his bedroom to find clothing for Irving. Pajamas would be best, James thought, something comfortable to wear about the house.

James was quietly grateful for all the people who made “historical” costumes, especially when they shared their work online. While he would not consider himself skilled by any means, certainly not enough to make anything he’d wear out (and he simply did not have the money to commission anything), he’d managed to make a passable banyan of the sort he remembered his uncle wearing when he was a child. He grabbed this for Irving as well, along with a pair of slippers, before returning to the bathroom.

He knocked gently on the door before pushing it open slowly. John had already undressed and sunk into the full bath, the clothes he’d been wearing earlier sitting neatly folded on the counter. He looked more relaxed than James thought he’d ever seen him.

“Brought you dry clothes,” James said, when Irving made no indication that he’d heard James enter.

John blinked his eyes open slowly. “Oh, um… thank you.”

He sounded very tired.

James replaced the wet clothes with the clean ones and hung the banyan on the hook on the back of the door. “I brought some nightclothes, slippers and a robe. The robe’s a bit wonky, but you’ll have to forgive that, as it was my first attempt at making a garment.”

Irving shifted in the bath abruptly to look at the robe. It was a deep, rich red fabric with a printed floral pattern that James had purchased on impulse after he’d wandered into a fabric shop on a trip to London.

“It looks nice from here,” Irving said.

James chuckled. “Just don’t look too closely at the seams, but it was fairly simple as far as robes go, just one big piece of fabric and then lining. It’s an older pattern too, a bit closer to home than a modern robe would be.” He watched Irving for a moment. “I could show you how to make one of your own, if you want.”

Irving sighed for a long moment, leaning back in the tub again. “That would be nice. I was just thinking about what I’m going to _do_ now. There was a least some structure at the hospital, but now… well now I don’t know what to do with myself. Making myself a robe seems as good a place to start as any.” 

“Certainly better than what I did,” James said, and Irving looked at him curiously when he didn’t elaborate.

“It’s a story for another time,” James added. The day had been strenuous enough for Irving, James telling him about his ill-advised dive into Franklin expedition academia could wait. “I ought to see about getting dinner started anyway. Is there anything you _want_? There’s so much you can get now just from any grocer.”

“Not soup,” Irving said quickly. “Sometimes it feels like that’s all they fed me at the hospital. Maybe…” He worried his lip. “I don’t know. I’d like to try something new, I think.”

Something new that wasn’t soup. James could certainly come up with something that fit those criteria. “I’ve got a few ideas of what I could make,” James said. “I’ll get started on that, and hopefully I’ll have it ready by the time you’re out of the bath.”

By the time James had made the short trek from the bathroom to bedroom for his laptop he had decided on what he was going to make: tofu stir fry. It was easy enough, and the likelihood of John having had it before seemed fairly low. James had first had tofu during his time in China and he’d quite enjoyed it, though he had found the texture strange at first. Properly seasoned, it was just as good as any meat in James’ opinion.

On a normal day, James would put on headphones and listen to music while he was cooking, but his headphones, which went over his ears, were very effective at blocking out all other noise, and now he needed to be able to hear, should Irving need anything. Instead, he set up music to play quietly through his laptop’s speakers and began chopping vegetables.

There was something soothing in methodically chopping vegetables: the repetition, the pressure of the knife sliding through a carrot or a potato, the satisfaction of seeing a pile of (mostly) evenly sized pieces. It was similar to the catharsis of kneading bread, James thought, though you could take out more frustrations on a ball of dough than you could by using a knife on a vegetable. Trying to take out your frustrations with a knife sounded like a good way to lose a finger.

James had the tofu and vegetables sautéing in a pan when Irving shuffled into the kitchen. “That smells good,” he murmured, sinking down into one of the kitchen chairs. “What is it?”

“Tofu stir fry,” James said. “There’s, ah, green beans, carrots, broccoli, and onion too.”

“Well, I did ask for something I’d never had,” Irving said. His voice was light and when James glanced over him, he saw Irving smiling slightly. “Can I ask what tofu is?”

“Soybeans, mashed to a pulp and turned into a brick, it…” James shook his head, laughing under his breath. “I’m not doing a very good job of making it sound appetizing, but it is just a block of compressed, mashed soybean. It’s all right plain, but it can be used for all sorts of things.”

He pulled the pan off the heat, switching off the burner before beginning before spooning the stir fry over the bowls of rice he’d already prepared.

“I’ll trust your taste,” Irving said, taking the bowl James held out to him. “Where did you learn to cook this?”

“One of the nurses got me a cookbook,” James explained. He made a quick stop to grab utensils—a fork for Irving and chopsticks for himself—before joining Irving at the table. “There is… well, with the invention of refrigerators and freezer and the improvements in canning techniques there’s a lot of food that can be sold already prepared or mostly prepared, but they don’t always taste quite as good as making it from scratch.”

Irving worried at the stem of the fork a moment. “Improvements in canning techniques?”

“Yes, canned foods now are much safer than what we had,” James said. “Regulations concerning food production are much stricter and use of lead is prohibited as it’s, well, toxic. The actual processes have improved too. It’s done by a machine now, here…”

James got to his feet and went to grab a can of soup from the cupboard. He slid it across the table to Irving before sitting back down.

Irving picked it up, turning it over in his hands. “There’s almost no seam at all…” He looked up at James. “Have they made improvements for opening them too?”

James laughed. “They have, yes. It’s hardly the production that getting into the Goldners’ tins was.”

It was a relief to see the smile that flickered across Irving’s face as he set the can back down. “That’s comforting to hear. I think eventually I might work up the nerve to eat canned food again.”

“That’s fair enough,” James said, picking up his chopsticks. “If there’s anything else you’d like to avoid eating let me know. It’s almost comically easy to avoid foods you don’t like these days.”

* * *

The food Fitzjames had prepared was very good, and though the texture of the tofu had certainly been a surprise, it wasn’t bad, and the taste certainly overcame any qualms John might have had about the texture. After dinner, John had offered to help wash up—it seemed the proper thing to do—but Fitzjames had insisted he could take care of it later and instead had shown John to the room that was to be his.

It was a fairly large room, with large windows facing over the snow covered garden that sat between Fitzjames’ flat and Downing College. It was by far the most familiar-feeling of the rooms in the flat. Fitzjames had mentioned that the house had been built in the 19th century—though he didn’t know exactly when—but the flat was furnished with quite modern fixtures and the bathroom and kitchen had been distinctly different from anything in John’s experience.

The room that was to be John’s had a few more obviously modern fixtures, but it didn’t diminish the comfort of the familiarity that lingered. His eyes flicked over the sofa and he was reminded of just how tired he was. The walk, short though it had been, had taken more out of him than he’d expected. “You had mentioned…” he began, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the sofa.

“Of course,” Fitzjames said. “Let me show you how it works, though I won’t make you try to set it up on your own. It does take a bit of muscle.”

John nodded, and watched Fitzjames begin to take apart the sofa. He had expected something quite complicated, and he supposed it was, to some extent, but there was simply a loop of coarse material which Fitzjames pulled up on and the whole thing came up and unfolded. If he weren’t so tired, John thought he might have stopped to look at the construction of the bed, but as it was, he was already beginning to feel unsteady.

Fitzjames must have noticed this, because once he’d gotten the bed out and flat (it was already fitted with sheets), he ushered John over to sit down, asking quietly if he was feeling well.

“Yes,” John replied with a small nod. “Just tired. It’s been a long day. The walk… I’m sure I’ll get used to it again, but the walk _and_ the snow…”

Fitzjames rubbed the back his shoulder. “That’s perfectly understandable. I need to go get you some pillows and the rest of the blankets, I’ll be right back.”

As Fitzjames left, John took further stock of the room. There were two bookshelves pressed up against a wall, though only one of them was anywhere close to full. There was a gap on one shelf where a section of books had been removed and never put back, likely books for Fitzjames’ studies, John thought. There were a few books stacked on the desk, and more elsewhere no doubt. He’d always had at least one textbook on him when he’d visited John in the hospital.

When John’s eyes began drooping, he decided to lie down while he waited. This was _his_ bed now, John supposed. He grabbed one of the couch throw pillows to rest his head on until Fitzjames returned with the others.

He didn’t _mean_ to fall asleep, but it was only a matter of moments from the time he settled down and closed his eyes before he drifted into a peaceful blackness.

It didn’t remain peaceful for long, however. The conversations of the day, the walking, the snow, all bled into a horrific mass of scenes. John trying to make himself something to eat, but opening can after can only to find them filled with nothing but chunks of flesh, followed by the stomach-lurching realization that knew who it was without knowing how he knew. The cans began to bubble with blood and he dropped the one he was holding, which sent a rush of blood over his hands and trousers. He choked, tried to turn away, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him and he was forced back around.

The cans were gone, but in their place was Edward Little, looking as he had the last time John had seen him alive.

“I’m sorry.” John’s throat ached. It felt as though his throat was splitting the way his cracked lips did when he spoke. “It should have been me.”

Edward had swapped with John to lead the hunting party with Hodgson at the last moment before they’d left. He had come back a corpse.

John tried to reach for Edward, but his hand passed through him and Edward dissolved into a world of white. Stumbling forward again, John tried calling for Edward to no avail. A stab of pain shot through his foot and John realized he was barefoot, barefoot and in nothing but one of those flimsy hospital gowns.

He tried calling out again, for Edward, Captain Fitzjames, _anyone_ , but he could hear nothing over the whip of the wind. Then the screaming started. The snow remained fierce but John could smell smoke, and the screams of the men quickly became interspersed with the sounds of ice cracking, wood splintering and a deafening inhuman roar that shook his very bones. He saw the outline of the beast charging, raising its claws to strike…

A shout tore its way from John’s throat as he shot up in bed. He panicked, briefly, as he tried to orient himself to his surroundings, the unfamiliar room unsettling until his common sense trickled back in, reminding him that he’d left the hospital with Fitzjames. He didn’t know what time it was, but it must have been some hours later as Fitzjames had clearly been here and gone; he’d left more pillows next to John and covered him with a heavy quilt.

John pulled the quilt up to his chest as he tried to calm himself, breathing in and out slowly like he’d been shown, but he couldn’t manage it. Every breath he took felt short and tight, and tears were leaking from his eyes.

It wasn’t until John felt a hand on his back that he realized he wasn’t alone, and it was enough to startle him out of the worst of his panic.

“Did I wake you?” John croaked.

“You did,” Fitzjames admitted, rubbing John’s back. “But that’s all right. What happened?”

“Nightmare, I was… there was so much…” John didn’t even know how to begin describing anything that had happened. It would voice too many things that hurt too much to speak of. What happened to Edward alone…

“Do you want to tell me about any of it?” Fitzjames asked.

John shook his head.

Fitzjames shifted to sit next to him on the bed, and John leaned into him, desperate for the comfort of being held. The guilt and anxiety sparked a moment later, that he’d presumed too much, but Fitzjames simply wrapped an arm around John’s shoulders and held him close. They stayed like that for several long moments, Fitzjames rubbing John’s upper arm softly as he held him, and eventually John’s tears tapered off and weariness set in again.

Perhaps thinking that John had fallen asleep again, Fitzjames started to move back to let John lie down again, but John reached out for him, catching on his nightshirt.

“Please don’t go.” John felt pitiful, but he also desperately did not want to be alone.

Next to him Fitzjames sighed. “All right then.”

John sat back and looked at Fitzjames. In truth, he had not expected such an easy acquiescence.

“But…”

John’s heart immediately sank again.

Fitzjames wrapped a careful hand around John’s upper arm. “Breathe John, I won’t leave you. I just thought we could move into my bedroom. My bed will fit the both of us.”

“Oh,” John breathed, wiping at his eyes. “Yes… yes I’d like that.”

Fitzjames’ room was smaller than the study-turned-bedroom for John, but it was a proper bedroom.

“You can hang the robe on the back of the door if you don’t want to wear it to bed,” Fitzjames said, tiding some clutter around the room.

John did so, before looking about the room. On one wall there was a board covered in pictures of what appeared to be a shipwreck and assorted recovered objects, with small bits of paper tacked alongside. There was also a large stack of books resting on Fitzjames’ bedside table, maybe some of the books missing from the shelf in the study, John thought.

Fitzjames’ hand on his arm drew him back to the matter at hand, and John realized with sudden clarity that he’d left the slippers that Fitzjames had loaned him in the other room.

“I left…” he started to say, but stopped himself before he could finish.

“What did you leave?” Fitzjames asked. His brow was furrowed, and he looked very worried.

“It’s… nothing really, I just left the slippers in the other room,” John said, and Fitzjames’ posture eased. For the first time John realized how hard this must be on Fitzjames too. Fitzjames had just had more time to adjust, but all that turmoil and anguish was still there. (These thoughts were immediately followed by guilt that he hadn’t noticed it sooner.)

“You can get them in the morning if you want them,” Fitzjames said. “Which side of the bed would you prefer?”

Fitzjames’ bed was pressed up against the wall, so there really was a choice to be made. “I’ll… I’ll take the inside.”

As John stepped towards the bed, the book on top of the pile on the nightstand caught his eye. Emblazoned on the cover was Fitzjames’ own face as he looked when they’d first sailed. “What is…?”

Fitzjames followed John’s line of sight and grimaced. “I’ll explain tomorrow, that’s… that’s not a conversation for tonight. In short, we… we left a rather large impact on the historical record.”

John swallowed heavily, still staring at the book. “James Fitzjames, The Mystery Man of the Franklin Expedition” the title read. He wondered if anyone had dug far enough into his life to write a book about him. He hoped not.

Fitzjames tugged on John’s arm lightly. “Let’s get back to bed. I promise I’ll give you all the answers you want tomorrow.”

John nodded. It was for the best. He tore his gaze away from the book and climbed into Fitzjames’ bed. It was rather firm, but he sank into it comfortably, and Fitzjames joined him a moment later.

“Thank you,” John murmured, curling into Fitzjames as Fitzjames drew him in.

“There’s no need to thank me,” Fitzjames replied, just as softly. “I’ve spent the past year utterly overwhelmed and the loneliest I’ve ever been. I’m not going to let you suffer that same way if I can help it.”

John’s breath hitched and he tucked his face into the crook of Fitzjames’ shoulder.

They fell quiet after that, and eventually John was lulled to sleep by the feeling of Fitzjames’ hand tracing patterns on his back.

John woke, bleary eyed, to sunlight filtering into the room through half-drawn curtains. He was alone, he realized, but the door was ajar and he could smell eggs cooking from the kitchen. He let out a sigh and burrowed into the blankets. As he lay in bed, warm, safe and not terribly hungry (though his stomach growled at the smell of eggs), John realized that he felt, for the first time inlonger than he could truly remember, something close to happy. There was still much to contend with, and he felt a pang of worry as he remembered the promise of a conversation about the expedition proper, but for now? For now, there was nothing he needed to do beyond go back to sleep or maybe pad into the kitchen to bother Fitzjames about tea.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: the fic opens with James having a panic attack and John has a few throughout too / there are references to John having to be restrained/sedated and having a feeding tube and a long term IV/ some emphasis is placed on John's inability to eat meat and struggling to eat, but the focus is mostly on recovery / early on John also thinks he's dead and in hell
> 
> FUN FACTS:
> 
> 1\. James studying marine biology is a nod to irl Fitzjames' letters where he mentions his friendship/interactions with Goodsir and studying the various things that they pulled up. [Feast your eyes on the giant white nudibrach he and Irving look at.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doridoidea#/media/File:Doris_odhneri.jpg)
> 
> 2\. Both Will Coningham and Irving's friend William Elphinstone Malcolm attended Trinity College at Cambridge. James is at Downing College, which is the college directly across from SPRI.
> 
> 3\. [These are the underwear that Fitzjames gives Irving to wear.](https://i.imgur.com/UtUIqzo.png) They are real underwear you can get from [MeUndies (they're an Adventurous pattern).](https://www.meundies.com/) I own a pair. 
> 
> 4\. [This is the fabric I am imagining for James banyan robe.](https://maiwa.com/collections/block-print-fabric/products/fabric-heavy-organic-cotton-block-printed-with-natural-dyes-burgundy-seedling) and this is what the [robe would have looked like more or less.](http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O89443/banyan-unknown/http:/night-gown-unknown/)
> 
> 5\. While you can imagine James listening to what ever music you please while he cooks, I have cultivated a ["Fitzjames' Bops" playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3IseLF9edbQD9cssf6JIlZ) for this au.
> 
> 6\. The pictures of shipwrecks on James' wall are indeed pictures of the wrecks of Erebus and Terror.


End file.
